A Full Confession of the Contents of Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s “Pikareum Sex Rituals”
By former close aide: Pastor Kim Deok-jin
Shūkan Post Weekly Post October 1, 1993 pages 38-41
▲ Upper left: Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife at last August’s mass wedding [1992]. Behind the headline is the memoir written by Pastor Kim Deok-jin, filled with feelings of repentance
. Center: Pastor Kim Deok-jin.
⟨ First of Three Exclusive Scoops ⟩
● Report by Takashi Ōbayashi (Journalist)
One year has passed since the Unification Church’s mass wedding ceremony held in Seoul. While drawing intense interest from the outside world, this emerging religious group remains shrouded in many mysteries. What are its sources of funding? What connections does it have with political and business circles? How does it conduct its missionary work? And how does it bridge the gap between the religious norms it upholds and the common values of contemporary society?
As one clue to unravel these questions, this magazine decided to investigate the roots of the Unification Church. During our reporting in Seoul, we encountered an intriguing witness. He began to speak of his own experiences concerning “a certain ritual” that was believed in and practiced around founder Sun Myung Moon during the early days of the Unification Church.
▲ Kim Deok-jin standing behind one group of “Six Marys”. Kim wrote 19 of the Unification Church “Holy Songs”. His writing credits are in the Japanese church song books, but not in many others.
“I Had Relations with Sixteen Female Church Members”
“Shall I tell you the secret hidden in the name Sun Myung Moon?”
Pastor Kim Deok-jin, now 80 years old, began speaking in this way. “Sun Myung Moon” is, of course, the founder of the Unification Church (the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity).
“Sun Myung Moon’s original name was Moon Yong-myeong, but one day I told him this: The character Moon (文) contains two crosses. If you add those crosses above and below the ‘sun’ in the character Myung (明), it becomes the character for Cho 朝 which means morning. Therefore, if you change the character Yong (龍) (dragon) to Seon (鮮),(fresh/bright), the name ‘Moon Sun Myung’ becomes Joseon/Chosŏn (Korea) itself.
Not long after that, he changed his name from Yong-myeong to Sun-myung.”
Kim, who says he gave the founder the idea to change his name, was once a close associate of Sun Myung Moon during the early days of the Unification Church. He currently holds the title of police chaplain at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
During our interview in Seoul, even more unbelievable and shocking statements came from Kim’s mouth.
“To ask whether the origin of the Unification Church was a sex cult based on pikareum is a foolish question. In Korea, many people know that the Unification Church was a pikareum sex cult. If you tell me to gather witnesses, I can bring as many as you like.
“I myself was chosen as a ‘runner’ in this sex relay.”
In fact, I myself was restored by having pikareum sex with Eu Shin-hee, who had sexual relations with Sun Myung Moon and so received pikareum sex restoration from him. Yes, pikareum sex rituals [should be done in a] relay of sex. After I had sexual relations with Eu Shin-hee, I had relations with 16 female believers and spread the pikareum restoration.”
His tone was neither excited nor agitated; he spoke calmly. Who, then, is this Kim? When I checked with a Korean police official, I received this response:
“During the Korean War, he was a music teacher in Kaesong (now in North Korea). When Kim Il-sung’s forces invaded and occupied Kaesong, he had no choice but to compose songs praising Kim Il-sung. Later, he was captured by the South Korean army and imprisoned on suspicion of being a spy. However, after a little over a year, he was ultimately acquitted and released. He then joined the Unification Church, later left it, and currently serves as a police chaplain, visiting prison inmates to comfort them through music and other means.”
This year, during two reporting trips to Korea, I made contact with Pastor Kim and conducted several long interviews with him. One day, he began speaking to me as follows.
“My Japanese is poor, but perhaps I should try writing a memoir, as a way of atoning for my time in the Unification Church.”
Kim, who grew up during the period of Japanese rule, is able to write in Japanese. I received his memoir on September 13. That document itself became a valuable testimony regarding the controversy over pikareum sex rituals in the Unification Church. Kim’s memoir begins as follows:
“I was sentenced to life imprisonment around 1953 as a result of a ruling by the Army Central Court Martial. I became Life Prisoner No. 438, and was incarcerated in the First Army Prison in Daegu. At that time, there was a man named Lee Seok-bin (a direct disciple of Sun Myung Moon) in the prison church choir, and he thoroughly taught me the Principle of the Unification Church (the pikareum sex ritual).”
What kind of ritual was this? In response to my question, Kim said it was a teaching that explained that by passing “pure blood” from women (who had been womb-cleansed by pikareum sex ritual restoration with the founder) to men, and from those men to other women, the original sin carried by humanity since the time of Adam and Eve would be erased. He also stated that he himself “listened to the Principle with total absorption.”
When Kim was released from the First Army Prison, Lee entrusted him with a letter, saying, “When you go to Seoul, please deliver this to Sun Myung Moon.”
After much effort, Kim located the Unification Church in Seoul and visited just as a service was about to begin. Present at that service, he said, were leading figures of the church: Kim Won-pil, Eu Hyo-won, Eu Hyo-won’s younger [cousin] Eu Hyo-min (now withdrawn from the church), and Pak Chung-hwa (also withdrawn).
The service began, and a hymn with lyrics written by Sun Myung Moon was sung. To Kim’s surprise, the melody was that of the Japanese military march “The Warship March.” When the service ended, Kim asked Moon, “How can such a foolish thing exist?” Moon’s face turned red, and thereafter, at Moon’s request, Kim composed nineteen songs for the Unification Church.
▲ Kim Deok-jin walking behind Sun Myung Moon
“Sun Myung Moon treated me specially. That was because I had fully understood the Principle and had been pikareum restored by Eu Shin-hee (Eu Hyo-min’s younger sister), who herself had been womb-cleansed through a pikareum sex ritual with Sun Myung Moon.”
“Woman-Loving Delinquent Youth: Kim Deok-jin”
The memoir describes the Unification Church’s “pikareum sex ritual” as follows:
“Women who had physical relations with Sun Myung Moon would necessarily have relations with a second man; that man with a third woman; that woman with a fourth man, and so on—in other words, in a relay style.
In particular, according to the Principle [of Restoration], Sun Myung Moon could not order male members to do pikareum with specific women who had been pikareum restored with him. Each woman member had to choose one male member herself and do pikareum with him.”
Was it not Sun Myung Moon who selected the partners for pikareum? Surprised by this in the memoir, I asked Kim about it. He replied that at the time the principles of the “Principle” were respected. However, among other members, there were many who waited for Moon’s instructions.
“Then how many female believers did Sun Myung Moon himself have relations with?”
When I voiced this question, Kim again calmly answered, “Over a hundred.”
▲ Pastor Kim Deok-jin in his younger days
What kind of ritual was performed at the time of doing pikareum? When pikareum was done from woman to man, was the woman on top? Kim gave a faint smile and said, “Those were explanations added later. At the time, it was simply done according to desire.”
Kim himself also carried out pikareum with numerous women. In his memoir, he confesses his own past as follows:
“Eu Shin-hee chose me and bestowed upon me the precious, living holy blood of Heavenly Father Sun Myung Moon. The woman-loving delinquent youth Kim Deok-jin took advantage of such an opportunity, carefully selecting beautiful female members—‘six in Seoul,’ ‘four in Jinju’—and had physical relations with them like a libertine.”
Kim told me that besides those ten women, he also “had relations with six other female members.”
Eu Hyo-won, the elder cousin of Eu Shin-hee, was a leading figure in the early Unification Church. Shortly after Japan’s defeat Sun Myung Moon was trying to launch the impoverished Unification Church in Busan. Eu Hyo-won was an intellectual who had studied medicine at Seoul National University [in the years when it was called the Keijō Imperial University.] Eu had a disability in one leg, however he joined in Busan and became Moon’s right-hand man. He is said to have been the substantive author of the church’s “Divine Principle.”
Eu Hyo-won later served for a long time as president of the Unification Church but died in July 1970.
Kim claims that he was chosen and pikareum restored by the cousin of this senior leader. However, the memoir records:
“Eu Hyo-won lectures female students well on the Divine Principle that he himself had written, yet he himself never once engaged in pikareum, simply waiting for an order from Sun Myung Moon to have ‘pikareum with so-and-so’—he was such a great fool.
And intending to halt my restless pikareum sex campaign, Eu Hyo-won told me that pikareum must be done three times according to the principles of ‘formation, growth, and completion.’ Since I had only done it once with his cousin Eu Shin-hee, it was naturally invalid. I became extremely angry and struck Eu Hyo-won.”
Perhaps Eu Hyo-won harbored inwardly unsettled feelings toward Kim, who had pikareum sexual relations with his cousin’s sister.
Abusing His Talents to Seduce Women
However, this conflict with Eu Hyo-won became the catalyst for Kim’s departure from Seoul.
“Sun Myung Moon, intending to separate me from Eu Hyo-won, ordered me to ‘go to Daegu.’ While dispatching me, Moon was at the same time planning to have his direct disciple Pak Chung-hwa (who had come south with Moon from North Korea) marry the beautiful Man Ok-rye in Daegu. She, of course, had also been womb-cleansed by Moon.”
On the third day after arriving in Daegu, Kim happened to reunite with Lee Seok-bin. He had once revealed the Principle of the Unification Church to Kim at the First Army Prison, and entrusted him with a letter to Sun Myung Moon. But since then he had withdrawn from the Unification Church and become an evangelist at the East Daegu Church.
Kim says that he accepted Lee’s advice to “become an ordinary Christian” and decided to leave the Unification Church, which he did in 1958.
Kim had graduated from a private school in Pyongyang which had been established by American missionaries. He writes that the school produced many famous pastors, distinguished educators, and social workers.
“I abused my talents in music (in performing and composition) to seduce numerous women. In particular, the sins I committed after becoming an executive in the Unification Church deserve severe punishment.”
· Rebuttal to the “Pikareum Sex Ritual” of the Unification Church
Mr. Kim Deok-jin was a member of the Korean Unification Church from around the mid-1950s. However, before joining the Unification Church, he had already caused problems involving 60 women. After joining the church, he arbitrarily interpreted the Unification Principle, carried out ritual-like acts, formed sexual relationships with multiple female Unification Church members, and caused problems involving women. Upon receiving confessions about these matters from the female believers, he was severely reprimanded by then Association President Eu Hyo-won and others, after which he stopped attending church, withdrew, and subsequently began criticizing the Unification Church.
According to Mr. Kim’s testimony and written accounts, he claims that a “pikareum sex ritual” was practiced in the Unification Church and that Reverend Sun Myung Moon himself had relationships with many women. However, in the Unification Church, there has never existed, either doctrinally or in practice, any “pikareum sex ritual,” nor has Reverend Moon had relationships with an unspecified large number of women. The statements made in Mr. Kim’s testimony and writings are entirely groundless and false, without any basis in fact.
Mr. Kim’s claims attribute to the church and to Reverend Moon the responsibility for the problems with women that he himself caused while he was in the Unification Church. It can be said to be self-evident that responsibility for such problems involving women lies with Mr. Kim himself.
(Public Relations Department)
In other words, Kim Deok-jin, who had once been an executive in the Unification Church, wrote this memoir 35 years later as an act of repentance and handed it to me. There are countless books and materials written about the many relationships and scandalous incidents involving Sun Myung Moon prior to his marriage in 1960 to his present wife, Hak Ja Han. However, as far as I can remember, I have never encountered a case in which someone claimed to have experienced, and done the “pikareum sex ritual,” and so openly and candidly confessed to having been involved.
In that sense, the significance of Kim Deok-jin’s shocking memoir is by no means small.
Of course, in today’s Unification Church, such pikareum sex rituals as described in this memoir are not practiced. Yet how will the Unification Church respond to the questions raised by this memoir, which exposes the inner workings of its early days? Please refer to the 40-page “rebuttal.” Furthermore, Kim Deok-jin’s memoir contains shocking statements about Sun Myung Moon, as recounted by his first wife, Mrs. Choi Seon-gil.(She divorced him in 1957.)
Whether those statements are true or not—I began making contact with Choi Seon-gil. Through various connections, I was finally able to meet her just before I was about to return to Japan after my second reporting trip to Korea.
On that very same day, at the Tokyo Dome, in front of tens of thousands of participants, Sun Myung Moon’s current wife, Hak Ja Han, was delivering a keynote address titled “The True Parents and the Era of the Completed Testament.”
At around the same time, across the sea in Seoul, I found myself sitting in front of Choi Seon-gil.
See articles published the following weeks, links below
“Second scoop” in the Weekly Post on October 8, 1993:
Moon’s first wife, Choi Seon-gil, and Kim Deok-jin interviewed
“Third scoop” in the Weekly Post on October 21, 1993:
Pikareum sex emerged at Ewha Womans University in 1955
Sun Myung Moon’s “Gigantic lie” by Eu Hyo-min (36 couple)
From The Tragedy of the Six Marys, Chapter 7:
Kim Deok-Jin – Someone who actually practised Moon’s sex relay